LENSES developed to help doctors spot veins more easily have a useful side effect – they enhance the ability to see reds and greens.
The glasses, made by 2AI Labs in Boise, Idaho, use filters to enhance perception of blood-oxygen levels in vessels under the skin. The filters concentrate their effects around the wavelengths where people with red-green colour blindness have deficiencies. “We didn’t design them for colour-blind people,” says Mark Changizi, of 2AI Labs, “but we weren’t too surprised to find they help.”
Daniel Bor, a colour-blind neuroscientist at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK, tried the specs. “They made my daughter’s lips and her red-orange jumper really stand out,” he says.
This article appeared in print under the headline “Glasses correct colour blindness”
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